Daily Archives: December 1, 2014

About once a month, my weekly post is a short list of links to news articles and other published pieces that resonate with me. In one way or another, they have to do with printed materials, graphic design, packaging, communications, or media.

Here’s this week’s list of interesting stuff:

Did you know that during World War II, a group of publishers banded together with the US government to find ways in which books could help soldiers during the war? I didn’t. But it did happen – and the result was 120 million little paperback books that were printed and shipped to American soldiers in Europe, North Africa and the Pacific. The article is from the Wall Street Journal on November 21st

It tells how a young author, Molly Guptill Manning, uncovered this story while doing research for her own book. Her book on this subject is called When Books Went to War.Great holiday gift idea! (PS: the soldiers preferred books about nostalgia and… sex… and this effort jumpstarted the rise of the paperback book industry as well as a new standard option for new homes: built-in bookcases.)

My newest column for Printing Impressions appears in the current issue (the one with the cover featuring the main story, “20 under 40.” Maybe one day there’ll be a “60 under 70” feature article. Ha ha.)

It discusses what print buyers really want – and no, it’s not just printing. This piece recaps a webinar in which three senior-level print buyers shared specific qualities that make a difference in their print provider relationships. See if their comments resonate with you, as they did with me.

I think this is big news for newspaper publishing. Billionaire Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, who bought The Washington Post last year for $250 million, introduced a new app that will deliver The Post for free to some Amazon Kindle owners. This app comes preloaded with content: articles, photos, and advertisements.

I read about it in the NYT on November 20th. “The app, which was designed to reduce the profusion of news content on the web into something streamlined as a print publication, will be automatically added to certain Kindle Fire tablets as part of a software update.” And it will have 2 editions – morning and evening!

This is definitely worth watching. I don’t own a Kindle, so if you do, please let me know if you have the app and what you think of the content.